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Add to SafariWhen comparing Liberation Mono vs Apple San Francisco Mono, the Slant community recommends Liberation Mono for most people. In the question“What are the best programming fonts?” Liberation Mono is ranked 17th while Apple San Francisco Mono is ranked 38th. The most important reason people chose Liberation Mono is:
Liberation Mono works well with hinting on high-resolution displays.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Very readable
Liberation Mono works well with hinting on high-resolution displays.
Pro As of 2023: Second Best screen-modern drop-in replacement for MT Courier New
Metric-compatible with Monotype Courier New, dot 0 (zero), modern non-Kettler lowercase l (ell), 660+ glyphs, OFL-1.1 license
Pro Compact line height
Just like Courier New (the metrics of which this font emulates), its line height isn't too big, which results in more lines on the screen, compared to Consolas and several other more popular fonts.
Pro Has Bold typeface
Pro Clear and dis·tin·guish·a·ble
Code is very readable at both big and small sizes.
Pro Beautiful with high pixel density
Pro Best legible font
This font is legible in every condition.
Pro Visible punctuation
Punctuation is prominent and easily visible.
Pro Looks good on low and high PPI displays
SF Mono looks good on external monitors and Retina Displays. Large and small font sizes.
Cons
Con Difference between "0" and "O" isn't clear
It can be difficult to tell the difference between the number "0" and the letter "O". However, the Fedora Project has a slightly altered version of Liberation Mono that fixes this with a dotted zero.
Con Liberation fonts are ugly
Con Apple is locking down this font
It's not open in any sense of the word. It even gives warnings if you try to rip it out of the Terminal.app or Xcode bundles. Obviously, Apple only wants it on their tools. This is such a shame. It should work in other editors, too. It's a beautiful font. Apple open sourced swift, why can't they be open with a monospace font?
Con No Ligature support
Does not support Ligatures so it doesn't play well with some terminal themes.
Con Lowercase l (ell) is similar to 1 (one)
Con Slightly difficult to use outside of Xcode, Terminal, or Console
The typeface isn't available in Font Book, etc. unless the user imports the files embedded in the apps above.
